The inventive concept relates generally to memory technologies. More particularly certain embodiments of the inventive concept relate to a method of estimating a deterioration state of a memory device and a wear leveling method using the method.
Memory devices tend to deteriorate according to usage, environmental conditions, and other factors. Such deterioration may result in loss of stored data. To avoid such data loss, researchers have developed various way to estimate and control the level of deterioration of a memory device, such as monitoring memory access operations and wear leveling. In general, the performance of the estimation techniques depends on their accuracy. Accordingly, there is a general need for improved estimation techniques for determining the level of deterioration of memory devices.